Urban Trial Freestyle Gets New Vita Details

We announced a couple of weeks ago that Urban Trial Freestyle will be coming to the PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Vita during Q1 of this year. Now developer Tate Interactive have returned to the internets to spill a few additional details concerning the Vita version of the game and what was changed to accommodate Sony’s portable device. As is commonly, and somewhat surprisingly, the case, the answer is “not a heck of a lot.”

Despite the fact that the PS Vita is a portable device, Tate GM Wojtek Bilinski today stated in a PlayStation Blog post that the system doesn’t have many limitations when compared to its big brother, the PS3.

“Still, there are some differences between the two versions, including events and background action, billboards and challenges,” Bilinski said. “PS Vita has a smaller screen, and we decided that trying to match the big platform level of detail would be too much on a handheld platform.”

He goes on to explain that, due to the size of the screen, Tate decided that it would not be wise to have as much crazy action going on in the background as in the PS3 version of the game. Sure, that OLED beauty is nice, but it’s probably a smart idea to limit the number of distractions you’ll be facing while cruising around on a dirt bike while the world blows up around you.

The other changes are actually additions to the game rather than subtractions. For starters, you can use the Vita’s camera to take a photo of yourself to be included on high score billboards, rather than just your regular old Avatar. Secondly, the “Defy Gravity” challenges will require you to tilt the entire Vita console, affecting gravity in whichever direction you are moving the device.